Officials in Pakistan said Tuesday that at least four security forces were killed when a group of heavily armed militants assaulted a paramilitary training center in southwestern Baluchistan province.
The Pakistani military's media wing said that "terrorists" attempted to storm the residential and administrative blocks of the Frontier Corps (FC) facility in the remote town of Loralai but security guards at the external checkpoint denied them entry.
"The initial exchange of fire at check post resulted into martyrdom of four security forces personnel while two got injured," it noted.
The assailants entered a compound adjacent to the checkpoint before security forces surrounded them and gunned down three of them while the fourth one blew himself up during the firefight.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack.
Baloch insurgents and militants linked to the outlawed Pakistani Taliban as well as loyalists of Islamic State usually take credit for staging deadly attacks against security officials and government installations in Baluchistan.
The sparsely populated, largest Pakistani province, is rich in natural resources and hosts several major China-funded infrastructure projects under construction in Pakistan. The violence has also targeted Chinese nationals working in Baluchistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan and Iran.
Pakistani authorities allege that anti-state militants, including Baloch separatists, are using Afghan soil for plotting terrorist attacks against the country.
Last week, a mysterious suicide blast in the southern Afghan border city of Kandahar killed a top leader of the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army along with four of his key commanders. The slain Aslam Baloch was accused of masterminding the November raid against the Chinese consulate in the Pakistani cityof Karachi.
ISLAMABAD —
